If you want great bus rapid transit service, go to China

Cleveland sets the gold standard for bus rapid transit (BRT) in the United States, even if it really only achieves bronze status.A Washington, D.C., blog called GreaterGreaterWashington.com points to standards published by the Institute for Transportation & Development Policy that describe minimum characteristics necessary for a bus route to qualify as BRT. Those standards establish three levels of BRT quality: bronze, silver, and gold, scored on a 100-point scale. They include features like off-bus fare collection, high station platforms, and bus frequency.Only five lines in the United States even qualify as true BRTs, GreaterGreaterWashington.com notes, and all rank at the bronze level.“According to ITDP, the best performing BRT systems in the world are Bogota, Colombia and Guangzhou, China, which score 93/100 and 89/100, respectively,” notes the blog post, which is written by Dan Malouff, a professional transportation planner for the Arlington County Department of Transportation.They are the gold standard.By comparison, the United States' highest-scoring BRT route is Cleveland's Health Line, which hits bronze with a score of 63. The other 4 bronze BRT lines in the United States are in Eugene, Ore., Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Las Vegas.The blog post has a theory on why this country doesn't rank higher in BRT capabilities:It isn't that gold standard BRT is impossible in the United States. Certainly it's possible. But it isn't built here because nobody really wants to build it.The same community leaders who choose BRT over rail, because BRT is cheaper, then make the same choice when faced with other potential cost-cutting measures. They eliminate the most expensive features, until the gold standard that was promised isn't actually what's delivered.

That sort of feature cutting is called BRT creep, and so far it's happened to some extent on every major BRT project in American history.

At your service

Bloomberg examines some of the steps hospitals — including the Cleveland Clinic — are taking as they try to win some of the almost $1 billion in government payments for hospitals with top-ranked service.“Across the U.S., the program is encouraging tidier rooms and quieter hallways at the more than 3,000 hospitals that participate in 'patient experience' surveys,” the news service reports. The surveys “are part of a broader shift by the federal government and private insurers to pay doctors and hospitals based on performance rather than numbers of tests and procedures.”The Clinic “is using noise meters to make sure hospital corridors are quiet at night and putting doctors through role playing exercises to improve communication with patients,” Bloomberg reports. “Nurses are supposed to pop in every hour to ask if patients need anything from pain medication to help going to the bathroom.” James Merlino, chief experience officer at the Clinic, tells Bloomberg, “This is not arbitrarily making patients happy, it's about how we practice health care. If you improve the way nurses communicate, medical errors go down. That's a driver of quality.”As welcome as those improvements may be, Bloomberg reports, “numerous studies based on earlier attempts to tie bonuses to performance suggest such incentives may do little to improve care.”Rewarding hospitals based on patients' experiences “could also have unforeseen repercussions,” doctors and economists tells Bloomberg. Such incentives, for example, “may harm patients most in need of care by discouraging hospitals from treating the elderly and the mentally ill, they say.”Sterling won't find this brilliant:The Wall Street Journalreports that a federal judge in Ohio has refused to block Zale Corp. from using an advertising campaign that touts the superior brightness of its diamonds, over the objections of a rival jewelry chain.Sterling Jewelers Inc. of Akron, a unit of Signet Jewelers, last November filed a lawsuit that accused Zale of false advertising in claiming that its Celebration Fire stones are the "most brilliant diamonds in the world." (Sterling “said its tests found that its own diamonds are as glittery as those sold in Zale's,” according to The Journal.)The story notes that Sterling “sought a preliminary injunction from the court, which would have required Zale to scrap the multimillion-dollar ad campaign as it headed into the busy Christmas and Valentine's sales seasons.”But in denying a preliminary injunction in the case, U.S. District Judge John R. Adams said Sterling had failed to show it would suffer irreparable harm from the advertisements, even if it prevailed at trial, the newspaper reports.

Sterling said it would continue to press forward with the lawsuit. A trial date for the case hasn't been set. Soup for you!:The Greenhouse Tavern in Cleveland makes this USA Today list of “10 great places to slurp soup.”The list is compiled by Anne Burrell, who hosts two Food Network shows. (And did you know January is National Soup Month? Neither did I.)Ms. Burrell likes Greenhouse Tavern's buttery, cream-based, Ohio black walnut soup, which she says combines two regional products: black walnuts and Ohio smoked pork. It's made from a sage chicken stock and will fill you up, says Mr. Burrell, who calls it “a very rich, hearty, nutty, earthy soup."Coming to a theater near you: A movie filmed in the Cleveland area was one of the breakout hits of the just-completed Sundance Film Festival.“Toy's House” is drawing comparisons to “Stand By Me,” “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Napoleon Dynamite.” It stars Nick Robinson, a 17-year-old actor who appears on the ABC Family sitcom "Melissa & Joey," as a high school kid who runs away from his dad to live with two quirky pals in the woods in a shack they build together.The Wall Street Journal says the comedy was acquired at Sundance by CBS Films for distribution later this year.“Toy's House” boasts a great supporting cast, including Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, Alison Brie and Mary Lynn Rajskub. This Slashfilm.com review is typical of the strong notices the movie received at Sundance.A Plain Dealer story last summer noted that the film was shot over 27 days in Lyndhurst, North Royalton, Peninsula, the South Chagrin Reservation in the Cleveland Metroparks, Happy Days Ledges and Nelson Ledges.You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio

Morning Roundup

Business headlines from Crain's Cleveland Business and other Ohio newspapers — delivered FREE to your inbox every morning. Sign up for the Morning Newsletter.